At the Merion Tribute House on Wednesday night, Susan Guthrie began by telling her larger than expected audience, “We believe it’s better to be prepared and not needed, than needed and unprepared.” Guthrie is one of the founding members of the recently formed Coalition for Neighborhood Character and Quality (CNCQ), a community group which hopes to minimize the negative impacts as St. Charles Seminary moves ahead with its plan to sell more than half of the 80 acres it currently occupies in Wynnewood.

Earlier this week Property reported that the Pittsburgh-based HHF LP announced
last week that “it has been exclusively retained for the disposition of the St. Charles
Borromeo Seminary Development Site.”

Before the meeting began, CNCQ members had neatly arranged about 50 chairs in the front room of the Tribute House (the room that’s usually used for serving cocktails to wedding and Bar/Bat Mitzvah guests before they’re ushered into “the big room” for dinner and dancing).

While St. Charles Seminary is moving forward with its plan to sell 45 of its 75 acres, several residents of the neighboring community have formed an organization called Coalition for Neighborhood Character and Quality. The coalition has been circulating a flyer around Merion and Wynnewood to announce a November 6 meeting at the Merion Tribute House. The flyer states the goals of the coalition are:

• To preserve the aesthetics, quality of life, green space, low density and character of a historic neighborhood along East Wynnewood Road in the face of increasing development pressures.
• To participate in land use planning for the future use of the St. Charles Seminary tract.
• To inform members of the Coalition and affected neighborhoods of matters regarding the development of the St. Charles Seminary tract, including traffic volume and parking on neighborhood roadways.
• To provide advice and potential support to affected neighborhoods regarding other development along East Wynnewood Road.

It’s been a busy time for real estate news in Lower Merion. There was the announcement of the 284-unit apartment building on Righters Ferry Road in Bala (about a nine minute walk to Lord and Taylor), and a report of a 31-unit condo planned at the site of the old YMCA in Ardmore.